Gillespie gives a quick – but representative – expression of libertarian thinking on where the GOP went wrong. There was much about which to disagree over Pres. Obama’s policies, but in the three areas Gillespie mentions, a decidedly more libertarian direction (truly smaller, less intrusive government) would have helped Republicans.
As for social conservatism, profound conservative opposition to liberal social policy isn’t going away. For it all, though, a political party during a long economic downturn should ask itself: what’s the leading issue before the voters?
There’s a fourth area where a few Republicans went wildly wrong, too: unbelievable theories about where Obama was born, his faith, whether he has a secret agenda, or that all the major state polls were somehow skewed in his favor.
It’s impossible to think that Goldwater, Reagan, or Kemp would ever have spent time on theories like those, or that they had anything like the opposition to immigration that’s now so powerful within the GOP.
I’ve no idea what the Republican Party will look like four years on. Republicans will craft a platform of their own design.
I do know what libertarianism looks like now, what it will continue to look like, and the positive outlook it offers all Americans.
Posted also at Daily Adams.